« First ‹ Previous 1 2 3 Next › Last »
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Voice of America (VOA) • March 14, 2024
Ukrainian Pastors Detail Persecution in Russia-Occupied Territories
[Pastor and rector, Valentyn] Syniy said several pastors who stayed behind were detained and beaten by the Russians, who told them that “sectarians” have no place in Russia and should be buried alive. Russia has illegally annexed many of its occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Russian military has killed at least 39 priests, pastors and monks; destroyed, damaged or looted at least 640 churches, monasteries, mosques, synagogues, theological institutions and other places of worship, said Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Baptist Standard • March 8, 2024
Stories recorded of Ukrainian Christians tortured by Russia
Russian soldiers captured Azat, a Ukrainian Baptist pastor, on one of his many trips to deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol as Russia ravaged the city in the early months of the war.
What Russian soldiers did to him over the next six weeks because of his Christian faith left him temporarily bedridden – one wound baring his leg bone, internal organs damaged, teeth knocked out, eardrums burst, he said in a video recounting the torture.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • February 16, 2024
Ukrainian priest abducted and tortured to death in Russian-occupied Kherson oblast | Locked Faith
Father Stepan Podolchak from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine had refused to betray his oath and his congregation by transferring affiliation to the Moscow patriarchate.
The Russian invaders have, reportedly, killed 59-year-old Stepan Podolchak, a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and head of a church in occupied Kalanchak (Kherson oblast). While the occupiers claim that Father Stepan died “of a heart attack”, this was two days after the Russians abducted him from his home and took him away, barefooted, and with a bag over his head, having turned his home upside down.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • October 13, 2023
Russia sentences Ukrainian Jehovah’s Witnesses to long terms of imprisonment for refusing to renounce their faith | Locked Faith
It was claimed that Volodymyr Maladyka, Volodymyr Sakada and Yevhen Zhukov ‘had committed a grave crime against the constitutional order and the security of the state” by practising their faith.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • August 22, 2023
Russian occupants seized a Roman Catholic chapel in Skadovsk | Locked Faith
“As we can see, the methods of the KGB haven’t changed… Therefore, I ask everyone for prayers so that the good Lord may shorten the days of the devil’s actions and the days of suffering for our people,” emphasized the bishop.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • May 12, 2023
Russia seizes and plunders central Cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in occupied Crimea | Locked Faith
The Russian occupation regime has called its forced seizure and looting of the central body of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Crimea “liberation”
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Evangelical Focus • April 24, 2023
Russian Baptist pastor convicted for “illegal missionary work”, Evangelical Focus
District Court of the Russian city of Bryansk fined the head pastor of the First Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Bryansk for “illegal missionary work”.
The court stated that last January, Mikhail Lipsky, along with another pastor of that church, conducted a worship service in the auditorium of the Gorky municipal culture center, “under the guise of a cultural concert, when non-religious people were present”.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • March 29, 2023
Ukrainian Jehovah’s Witness faces 10-year sentence for studying the Bible in Russian-occupied Crimea | Locked Faith
A second criminal charge has been laid against 53-year-old Dmytro Naukhatsky in Russian-occupied Crimea, with the Jehovah’s Witness now facing up to ten years imprisonment solely for practising his faith.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Evangelical Focus • March 22, 2023
Russia fines quoting the Bible to “discredit the Armed Forces”, Evangelical Focus
Fined for quoting the Bible
One of them was Rostislav Charushin. Police arrested him in Moscow because a poster he had that quoted three of the Bible’s Ten Commandments, including Thou shalt not kill, “clearly expresses a negative attitude towards the use of the Armed Forces to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens”.
He was fined him twice on 9 March for both “discreditation” and violation of the Demonstrations Law. The judge also ordered to destroy to the poster.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • February 3, 2023
Disappeared clergy, seized places of worship, library purge in the occupied territories of Ukraine | Locked Faith
Russian occupation authorities continue to violate freedom of religion and belief in the Ukrainian territory they currently control. In late 2022 two Greek Catholic priests and a Protestant pastor were the latest known religious leaders seized by occupation authorities. The pastor was freed in January, but it is unknown where the priests are or even if they are still alive. [UPDATE: Russian military seized Orthodox priest Platon Danyshchuk on 26 January.] Raids on and seizures of places of worship continued in January, and a purge of “extremist” books from educational libraries was ordered in Luhansk.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • December 12, 2022
Two Ukrainian believers sentenced to six years in Russian-occupied Crimea for a Zoom conversation about the Bible | Locked Faith
The Russian-controlled Armiansk city ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has sentenced two Jehovah’s Witnesses – 62-year-old Oleksandr Lytvyniuk and Oleksandr Dubovenko (49) to six years’ imprisonment in a medium security prison colony purely for practising their faith. The prosecution’s chief ‘evidence’ in this shocking new example of Russian religious persecution on occupied territory was a Zoom conference discussing the Bible.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Evangelical Focus • December 5, 2022
Evangelical preacher and son murdered in Ukraine, Evangelical Focus
They were working in their garage when a group of Russian soldiers abducted them. Four days later, their bodies were found in a forest.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • November 30, 2022
Arrests, detentions and murders of priests in the occupied territories of Ukraine | Locked Faith
Russia’s National Guard seized two priests in Russian-occupied Berdyansk on 16 November. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Donetsk Exarchate denies Russian claims that Fr Ivan Levytsky and Fr Bohdan Heleta stored explosives in the church and had “extremist” literature. Fr Bohdan needs regular medicine. “Being under arrest and being tortured pose a very serious threat to his life.” On 26 November, the tortured and shot bodies of Pentecostal deacon Anatoly Prokopchuk and his son were found, four days after the Russian military seized them.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) • November 30, 2022
Evangelical deacon and his son found murdered near Nova Kakhovka after being abducted by the Russians
The bodies have been found in a forest near Nova Kakhovka of Anatoliy Prokopchuk, an evangelical deacon and his son, Oleksandr. Citing friends of the two men, the Centre for Journalist Investigations reports that their bodies were found on 26 November, four days after they were abducted by Russian soldiers.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • November 28, 2022
Evangelical deacon and his son found murdered near Nova Kakhovka after being abducted by the Russians | Locked Faith
The bodies have been found in a forest near Nova Kakhovka of Anatoliy Prokopchuk, an evangelical deacon and his son, Oleksandr. Citing friends of the two men, the Centre for Journalist Investigations reports that their bodies were found on 26 November, four days after they were abducted by Russian soldiers.